219th Meditation
“We serve a great and exalted king, who pays His servants not with regal or imperial, but with divine reward” (St. Arnold Janssen).
Kings and emperors can only repay our services with worldly rewards, with things which they can dispose of, but which are fleeting. What they can offer us is only a share in their earthly power or honour. God, on the other hand, repays each of our services with divine reward, making us partakers of His immortality, of His imperishable being.
It is a joy for our Father to shower us with good things, and we might say that He is downright eager to offer us countless opportunities to earn divine rewards. Every smallest act, every denial of ourselves for His sake, every word uttered for His glory is forever engraved in His memory.
Let us consider how many opportunities He offers us each day to lay up treasures for the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 6:20). If we took advantage of them all, we would be truly rich and could look forward with joy to what the Lord has in store for us in eternity. It is to this attitude that St. Paul invites us when he affirms:
“I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come for me now is the crown of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim 4:7-8).
However, we cannot yet imagine it well. But if already here, in our earthly life, we constantly experience the caring kindness of our Father, perceive His tender love and feel the inner peace that He grants us, we can get an idea of what is yet to come.
All this will be far surpassed by what we will experience in eternity, when we will behold God face to face. There, living in God’s light, we will be able to receive His reward in a totally different way. With unimaginable joy we will praise and thank our Father without ceasing, for repaying our smallest deeds with a reward that only He can give.